C O F 



OR, BOTAMCAL DICTIONARY. 



C O F 



337 



on the other, where it is furrowed longitudinally, involved 

 in an aril. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. Corolla .- salver-shaped. 

 Shnnina : upon the tube. Berry, inferior, two-seeded. Seeds: 



arilled. The species are, 



1. Coffea Arabica; Eastern Coffee-Tree. Flowers five- 

 cleft ; berries two-seeded. The Coffee-tree seldom rises more 

 than sixteen or eighteen feet high in its native country, or 

 more thnn ten or twelve in Europe. The main stem grows 

 upright, and is covered with alight brown bark; branches 

 horizontally opposite, brachiate at every joint ; leaves oppo- 

 site, four or five inches long when fully grown, an inch and 

 a half broad in the middle, ovate-lanceolate, the borders 

 wared, and the surface of a lucid green, but paler beneath. 

 The (lowers are produced in clusters at the base of the leaves, 

 four or five together, sitting close to the branches; they are 

 of a pure white, with a very grateful odour, but of short 

 duration ; and are succeeded by berries, which are at first 

 green, but turn red when fully grown, and are black when 

 ripe : they are of an oblong spheroidal form, with a little 

 circular area at the top, within which is a callous dot ; the 

 pulp is pale, insipid, and gelatinous ; within it is two-celled, 

 each containing one seed, of an elliptical form, convex on 

 one side, and flat on the other, with a longitudinal cleft. 

 Dr. Patrick Browne, who resided many years in Jamaica, in- 

 forms us that the Coffee-tree thrives best in a rich soil, and 

 cool shaded situation, where it produces so great a quantity of 

 fruit, that the very trunk itself yields to the load. This fruit is 

 large and succulent, and the berries lax and clammy ; they are 

 gathered when only half ripe ; and instead of being stripped 

 of their pulp, and carried down to the low lands to be dried, 

 the seeds are left soaking in their clammy juices, to dry slowly 

 in a damp air. This will sufficiently account for the inferiority 

 of the Jamaica, when compared with the Arabian Coffee, 

 wliich grows in a sandy, dry, hot soil, where the berries ac- 

 quire but little pulp, and are soon dried by being spread 

 ' upon mats, and exposed to the sun. The same accurate 

 writer, however, consoles us by his opinion, founded upon re- 

 peated experiments, that theWest India Islands might furnish 

 Coffee equal in quality to the Turkish, if the following re- 

 marks were attended to: 1. New Coffee will never parch or 

 mix well, from the natural clamminess of the juices : 2. the 

 smaller the grain, the less pulp the berry has, the better 

 the Coffee, and the sooner it will parch, mix, and acquire a 

 flavour : 3. the drier the soil, and the warmer the situation, 

 the better will be the Coffee it produces : 4. the larger and 

 more succulent the grain, the worse the quality will prove : 

 5 the worst Coffee produced in America, will in the course of 

 ye;irs, not exceeding ten orfourteen, be as good as the best we 

 now receive from Turkey, if care be taken to keep it in a dry 

 place, and to preserve it properly. Small-grained Coffee is 

 the best. Mr. Miller advices those who cultivate the Coffee- 

 tree in the West Indies ; first, to prefer a dry before a moist 

 soil; secondly, to permit the berries to remain upon the 

 trees until the skin shrivels and turns black ; thirdly, to 

 gather, or rather shake them from the trees when they 

 are perfectly dry, spreading them afterwards upon cloths 

 or mats in the sun, and carrying them every evening under 

 cover, until they are wholly dry, as is done in Arabia Felix : 

 and when they are thus perfectly dried, deprived of 

 their husks, and winnowed, he advises to pack them up 

 carefully in bags, and not to ship them with rum or other 

 goods, from which they may imbibe a disagreeable flavour. 

 In addition to this, Dr. Browne recommends the posses- 

 sors of large Coffee walks to have a convenient platform to 

 dry the seeds on, and he thinks it would be a useful experi- 

 ment to try whether sweating would remove the clamminess 

 VOL. i. 29 



of the large berries. They should, however, be pulped and 

 dried as soon as possible, then husked, and cleared from all 

 the outward coverings. This is generally done, in Jamaica, 

 by pounding the dried berries lightly in a large wooden mor- 

 tar ; they are then winnowed, cleared, again exposed to the 

 sun for some days, and then casked for the market. If it be 

 not well dried, the Coffee is liable to heat on its way to Eu- 

 rope, and when that occurs it loses all its flavour. Long, in 

 his history of Jamaica, observes, that the berries never 

 ought to be gathered until the pulp is exhaled, and the coat 

 suffered to become thoroughly dry and shrivelled, so that 

 they may appear ready to drop off, and actually fall upon a 

 slight touch. In confirmation of this, he affirms that he has 

 experienced the best-flavoured Coffee to have been collected 

 from under the trees, where it had recently fallen quite dry, 

 black, and shrivelled : he adds that the trees should be 

 planted at distances proportioned to their growth, which is 

 five feet in the low lands, and ten or more in the mountains ; 

 and that the produce of a good tree is from one pound and 

 a half to two pounds weight : he also thinks, that the moun- 

 tain Coffee might be improved by sending the berries to the 

 low lands, where the heat is greater, and the air more dry; 

 and by having a drying house under a roof, with one or more 

 platforms, admitting a free current of air, and excluding the 

 rain and the beams of the sun : he further informs us, that 

 the husks are no longer beaten off in mortars, but by rollers 

 turned by mules ; that wooden rollers are preferable to iron 

 or stone ; and that the most approved machine, invented by 

 Mr. Latham, will clean one hundred hogsheads in a day. 

 Dr. Fothergill very reasonably suggests, that the removal of 

 the Coffee-tree from the dry sterile sandy soil of Arabia, into 

 the rich deep staple of Batavia, where the quantity of water 

 falling in the rainy season is excessive ; its removal from 

 thence into Holland and France ; and its subsequent trans- 

 portation to a climate much more abounding in moisture than 

 that of which it was a native, may so far have altered the 

 quality of the fruit, as to make it difficult to restore it to its 

 original perfection ; which he nevertheless thinks may be ac- 

 complished by making the plantations in soils as similar as 

 possible to that out of which it was originally taken : he also 

 hints that the fruit of young trees is in general more insipid, 

 or has a less refined taste, than the old, and that this probably 

 applies to the Coffee-tree, the fruit of which lie, asserts to be 

 smaller in the old than in the young trees. The French cul- 

 tivate it with great attention in both Indies ; and the conse- 

 quence is, that their Coffee is much superior to ours, and by 

 some is even accounted nenrly equal to the best Turkey. 

 They are also more careful in not shipping it among goods 

 which destroy its flavour, and communicate an ill taste in its 

 stead, as with rum and coarse sugars, the ill flavour arising 

 from which can hardly be removed, even by roasting it in the 

 fire. It is also probable, adds Dr. Fothergill, that our plan- 

 tation Coffee is used too soon ; and that one part of the excel- 

 lence of the Mocha Coffee may arise from the intervention 

 of two or three years between its growth and consumption. 

 Mr. Miller, however, controverts this hypothesis. " It is 

 (says he) contrary to all the experience I have had, and 

 the information I have obtained from those who have been 

 eye-witnesses to the whole process of managing Coffee 

 in Arabia. Two gentlemen who have lived there some years 

 assure me, that the berries, when first gathered, are much 

 better than those which have been kept any time. And a 

 curious observer, who resided two years in Barbadoes, also 

 informs me, that he never drank better Coffee in any part of 

 the world than what he made fresh from the berries he 

 gathered himself, and roasted as he had occasion for them." 

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